Chains of Redemption (15 page)

Jessica grinned now, almost as excited as the boy. "Ah, but it's not just a marble, Dax." She positioned it in his hand so that the red dot pointed up. "Hold it very tightly and watch."

The boy watched in amazement as a dragon seemed to materialize in the air in front of him and over the "marble". "It's a hologram," he said in awe.

"Yes. Now move your hand back and forth like this." She showed him with her own hand.

As Dax moved his hand, a man with a sword appeared and started to fight with the snarling dragon. When he stopped moving his hand the man stood alone. "I have to show my mom and dad." He motioned for her to lean down and he kissed her on the check. "Thanks, RJ," he practically sang, and then he was gone. She smiled after him. He wasn't going to get much bigger, that was what the doctor said. He had apparently inherited the gene from his father, a fact that seemed to bother Mickey much more than it bothered the boy.

Gerald walked up beside her, carting his duffel bag. "That boy . . . so much energy," he laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd think he was yours."

"He is mine," Jessica said softly. "He's my heart." She fought the tears that wanted to fall.

"He loves you, too."

"I know he does." Jessica laughed then and slapped Gerald almost too hard on the back. "Too much time away from home has made me very sentimental." That and an exceptionally high body count. The battle for Zone 3-B and permanent control of Moonbase Station had been the longest and bloodiest yet. She'd lost a good third of her own personal unit. Men and woman she had fought beside for ten years were dead. Smiles she had gotten used to seeing were gone forever, people she had trusted and who had trusted her, people she had let down.

Comrades, friends.

"No one blames you, RJ," Gerald said as if reading her mind.

"But they should," Jessica said with a sigh. "I got careless, cocky. I thought we could win easily."

"We did win, RJ . . ."

"But not easily." Jessica sighed and started moving back towards the fort, and now a tear did fall. It fell from the eye she had stolen from the Argy foreman she had killed all those years ago, and she quickly wiped it away. She wasn't RJ. She was an abomination of genetically engineered flesh and bone with a dead man's eye.

"No one can know everything, RJ," Gerald said as he followed her. "None who died would have wanted to be anywhere else in that hour. They died doing a great deed. Another zone is free. We have permanent control of the Moon base. The Reliance has been completely eradicated from Earth. Many die and leave no such legacy."

It was one of the reasons she preferred fighting with the Fourers. They were true warriors. Like her, they were built for war and conquest. They weren't afraid of dying, and would rather die in battle than in a hospital bed. Today she damned their loyalty and fearlessness in battle. Damned her own pride. Jessica nodded silently, not really knowing how to explain to Gerald that she didn't feel any better knowing that given the chance, even knowing they would die, they still would have followed her into battle.

Mickey looked across the table at her. "Do you think they'll come back?"

Jessica shook her head no. "They evacuated all the Reliance big shots to one of Trinidad's moons. We don't know which one, but I'm guessing Seritompia. They've all but lost the battle for Stashes. Argy forces are even now moving towards Urta, and if the Reliance wants to hold Stashes and secure Urta they will have to move all their forces there. They can't afford to take another pounding from us right now. Not over a world they consider as unproductive as Earth.

"We have taught the work units to fight back and destroyed most of their bases and cities. In short, there is nothing left here that in their opinion is worth fighting for. Not when they know there is a good chance they can't win."

"Then, why . . . Why did they fight so hard up till now?" Gerald asked.

"To keep from losing face. They just lost their home planet to a bunch of heretics. In their war with the Argy they have always touted themselves as being the strongest force in the universe. Now they've lost their home planet to a bunch of work units. There has been no such rebel uprising amongst the Argy. The Argy will take Stashes, and then they'll go after Urta. Therein lies the real problem."

"Huh?" Mickey asked, feeling lost.

"Well, we split the Reliance forces between Earth and Stashes, and it allowed us to take Earth while the Argy took Stashes. They haven't yet, but they will. The Reliance couldn't beat either one of us as long as they were fighting both of us. But when I met with the Argy on Deakard and we discussed forming an alliance, it was just to help us take Earth and them to take Stashes. The Argy obviously don't plan to adhere to our original agreement. Once they have successfully taken Stashes, they will move against other Reliance-held planets. They will try to take over the colony planets, and that was never part of the deal, because
I
want the colony planets. I don't want to see the Reliance replaced on the outer worlds by the Argy, who are just as bad, if not worse, when it comes to enslaving their people."

"Why don't the Argy . . . why don't they rebel against their leadership if it's as bad as you say it is?" Mickey asked.

"You are frustrated, confused and hungry. From this I can deduce that you don't really understand what we are talking about, that you wish you'd never brought the subject up, and that if we could now just eat the rest of our meal in relative silence you would be very happy," Jessica spat back quickly. "In a race where everyone knows how everyone else feels and where you become a suspect if you continuously shield your feelings, it's rather hard to construct, let alone carry out, any kind of rebellion. Then there are the telepaths, all of whom work for the government and make a living randomly reading the thoughts of people in and around strategic areas. This is why we don't want them to take over the colony planets."

"Is there any way they can be stopped? Can the Reliance stop them?"

"I don't know if the Reliance can stop them. The Argy have gained a lot of momentum, while the Reliance has lost two massive campaigns. Morale has got to be at an all-time low, and many of them must be questioning why they are fighting for a regime that they are now starting to question. The Argy can be stopped; the question is what's the best way to stop them? What's the best way to stop them and still get rid of the Reliance? Just as the Reliance couldn't fight on two fronts, neither can we. We have to decide what's going to best serve the New Alliance."

"What are you thinking?" Mickey asked.

"That I'd also like to drop the subject and finish dinner," Jessica said with a smile.

Mickey smiled back and nodded.

Jessica walked along the wall. When she had first done it, it had just been because she had learned it was something RJ had done. Apparently RJ had walked along this wall and looked out at the bareness of the mainland. Now of course there was a thriving city there again, but when RJ had walked this wall . . . nothing but ruins. Ruins that Jessica had created in that previous life.

And now she knew. Now she knew exactly what RJ had felt looking out at what had once been. Why she had come after Jessica with such a vengeance.

It was all about caring. Actually caring more about someone else than you did about yourself. The minute she had become RJ she had learned what it meant to truly care about someone, because for the first time she had felt the very real caring that others had for her. Mickey loved her. So did Diana and a dozen others.

Guilt hung over Jessica like a filthy shroud.

When people truly cared for you, loved you, it was only a matter of time till you loved them back, unless you were dead. Jessica was crazy, but not dead. Of course Mickey and Diana and the others didn't actually love Jessica. They loved RJ. They actually hated Jessica. So this love was stolen. It belonged to RJ, but Jessica had stolen it, just as she had stolen her sister's life.

RJ had paced this wall and looked out at the mainland, thinking about all she had lost. Now Jessica paced this wall and looked out on the mainland, thinking about all that she had lost.

When Dax had been born his mother had held him first, then Mickey had taken him, and then the tiny infant, still covered with slime, had been placed into Jessica's arms—and she had immediately fallen in love. It had been the purest joy she had ever felt. The strongest emotion.

For the first few months of his life Jessica had spent most of her time on the front. Every time she came back it was obvious that Dax didn't remember her, but she didn't care. Just holding him made her feel better about everything.

Then when Dax was six months old he became very ill. The doctor said it was the flu. Dax cried almost constantly, and after two days with no sleep, and having the flu themselves, both Mickey and Diana were exhausted. Of course Jessica didn't actually need much sleep, couldn't get sick, and she had endless amounts of energy. She practically ordered Mickey and Diana to bed and she took over care of the sick baby.

She walked Dax for hours on end. Bathed him, fed him, gave him his medicine, and basically willed him to get well. By the third night he was feeling better, and as she was walking him he lay his head on her shoulder, looked right at her and sighed. Then she felt it. He loved her. He didn't think she was RJ. Hell, he didn't
know
RJ. He actually loved
her
.

Having that pure, unconditional love, feeling it, had changed her.

She looked at the city. Her people were over there right now, enjoying themselves, reveling in their victory, drinking to lost comrades. None of them were blaming her. But it
was
her fault. She had miscalculated the number of men she would need for the assault. She had told them to bear right when they should have borne left. Gerald was right. She couldn't know everything.

Not even RJ knows everything. Alsterase is proof of that. The fact that I'm here in her place now and she's gods-only-know-where is proof of that. But does it really matter? I caused the deaths of my troops, my friends, just as surely as I caused the destruction of Alsterase. Can I ever truly gain redemption when everything I do just brings more death? I was crazy once, I know that now, but am I still just as crazy and I just don't understand it? I was completely insane before, but I didn't think I was. Maybe I'm still crazy and I still don't know it.

"Hey, RJ!" Dax's yell and the sound of his footsteps broke her concentration. He ran up to her out of breath, the ball in his hand. "Sit down," he ordered. He always wanted her to sit down or kneel because otherwise he wasn't sure he had her full attention; she was too tall. "Wait till you see this." He placed his hand on the bottom of the ball and held it there for several seconds; it was actually heat-activated. The dragon came up and he made him bow, and then the man came up and he made him bow, then he made them fight. Then they bowed to each other and he had them shake hands and walk away. "See? One of them doesn't always win. Sometimes it ends in a draw."

"You are very wise," Jessica said.

"Sometimes you can also make the dragon spurt blood from his mouth."

"Or maybe not," Jessica laughed. She sat down on a section of wall. "So . . . are you too big to sit on my lap?"

Dax made a face. "Not too big, but too old. I'm almost twelve you know, RJ."

"Your father used to ride around on my shoulder when he was a full grown man. I think you can sit in my lap. Come on, humor an old woman." She patted her leg. Dax looked around to make sure no one was looking, then he walked over and let her set him in her lap. He lay his head against her shoulder, and sighed, and Jessica knew that he didn't really mind sitting in her lap at all.

He laughed. "You aren't old."

"You know that I am, Dax." She kissed the top of his head and held him tight. "I'm older than your mom, and much older than your dad. Today I actually feel the years."

"Well, you don't look it," he said.

"You know, kid, I'd probably be flattered if I hadn't been built in a bottle and poured onto the Earth."

He laughed.

"You think that's funny, huh?" she asked with a smile, and he nodded.

"Tell me about the battle, RJ. Tell me what happened." It wasn't an unusual request, he always wanted to hear about the battle and she always told him.

And she did tell him, but this time it was different. This time she told him everything, even how her friends had died. This time she didn't glorify it. She told him how Mantel had looked at her and smiled at the moment he knew the blast was going to strike him. How Armonda had screamed out and then fallen dead without even a moment to contemplate her death. She explained the empty feeling in her soul when Justin had died in her arms just moments after the last shot in the battle had been fired. Then she cried, and he comforted her.

RJ stepped from the cryogenic chamber and started to scrape the blue-green sludge from her face and body. She had been slowly revitalized so that she wasn't cold, and the apparatus had sucked the cryogenic liquid from her airways and lungs so she wasn't having any trouble breathing. She knew that her vision would clear shortly, that she was going to be all right. But she felt as if she had awakened from one, long, horrible nightmare, one that she couldn't remember but that had left her feeling raw, exposed and filthy. The slime didn't help.